Matt Drake Book 9 - The Plagues of Pandora

by David Leadbeater

  “Hold on.” Crouch focused on Caitlyn. “Get to the point.”

  “So forget Stone. Also, Nicholas Bell has vanished. No sightings within the US and no plane travel. Is this coincidence or are the Pythians gathering? Well, what if there’s another explanation?”

  Alicia liked Caitlyn’s train of thought so far. Although she had known the ex-MI6 girl for only a few weeks, Alicia already believed in her analytical talent. Though leaving MI6 under a blanket of uncertainty and with a recent undisclosed horrendous experience in her personal life, Caitlyn was willing to learn, willing to train hard and had withstood her torture at the hands of a Mexican gang superbly well.

  The dark-haired girl continued. “The third Pythian,” she said. “Miranda Le Brun.”

  “She’s been seen?” Karin asked.

  “Not exactly. But her private plane filed a flight plan several days ago. Maybe if Armand can request closed-circuit footage from Thessaloniki International Airport?”

  “I can do better than that,” Argento told them. “As Interpol associates itself closely with the Greek police, its chief of police and the International Police Cooperation Division, I can access the feeds myself. It may take just a little time to allow for protocol.”

  Caitlyn spent the time double checking her information on Le Brun. Not an awful lot about the woman was known, she was married to a deceased oil billionaire, and rarely attended social functions but her various assets and known wealth was in the public domain. Flight plans were filed regularly as a matter of necessity, and air movement messages sent to the local civil aviation authority, in the case of the States this was the FAA, who kept detailed records. Caitlyn hadn’t needed a hacker to acquire the information; she had simply asked the Americans for it using the emergency code word attributed to the Pythian situation.

  “I am now in the system,” Argento said. “And my, my, amico mio, it is excellent quality. Most excellent. With zoom I can count the nose hairs, but never mind that. I am initiating facial recognition software and . . . bavoom we have our match. Today is . . . yes, and there we have it. Our Miranda bypassed customs but still went through the VIP desk three days ago . . .” Argento chatted on.

  Alicia struggled to keep up, trying to identify relevant information from the rambling. Now she was starting to understand why they called him the Jabbering Venetian.

  “And she is with a man,” Argento exclaimed. “Who I know. But I will run the software again to be sure.”

  Crouch leaned forward. “Who do you think it is?”

  “Wait, wait. Yes, yes it is Nicholas Bell. The pair arrived together. So there you have it. Argento strikes again! We have a success.”

  Crouch was even further ahead, and so it seemed was Karin Blake. At the same time they said, “Check Callan Dudley’s movements.”

  Alicia felt a surge of adrenalin. If two Pythians arrived in Greece not three days ago then the motives could be manifold, from concealment to recruitment. If Dudley, the Irish mercenary, arrived around the same time it could only be for one reason.

  Delivery of the sample he had escaped with.

  Argento circumvented the search by running Dudley through his software. A low whistle underlined his surprise.

  “Arrived in Greece very recently,” he said. “Flew into Larissa Airport, but that is of no matter since it is only sixty eight miles away. It is too much of a coincidence to be innocent, no?”

  “Bloody right,” Crouch said. “It’s a lead and no mistake.”

  Alicia watched Karin turn around in her seat, addressing someone in the background. “What do you think?” the young woman said. “We’re all played out here in London. Should we go?”

  Hayden stepped into view. “We need more,” she said. “Why are they there? Where exactly did they go? Armand, try the traffic cams and see if they can be useful. I wonder if they even met at all.”

  Now Drake appeared in camera shot. “Deeper investigation, love. That’s what we need here. We can’t all go shooting off to the same place. Who knows where we’ll be needed next? It’d take a pretty big goddamn reason to send us all running off to Greece.” He stopped, then added, “Even if we weren’t at war.”

  Alicia experienced a trickle of disappointment but knew they were right. Both London and Paris were fairly central cities on a worldwide scale. It wouldn’t pay to race off on a fool’s errand or, quite possibly, a diversionary wild goose chase.

  “I can tell you now that Le Brun and Bell entered a waiting car, alone, and that Dudley and two companions, probably mercenaries, took a rental. Do you see? We don’t have to track Dudley’s movements, just access the car rental firm’s records.”

  “Eyes everywhere, huh?” Russo said with a little sarcasm.

  “Would you rather prevent an average of five large-scale terrorist attacks a year or experience them?”

  Russo remained silent, staring at nothing. Crouch busied himself with research whilst Argento worked.

  “Why Greece?” he whispered to himself. “This bloody location is too much of a coincidence for me.”

  Karin’s voice cane through the monitor. “Greece is an intersection,” she suggested. “Cunningly located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia and Africa.” Her voice tailed off.

  Crouch whistled. “That would mean it’s the perfect staging area for the secret factory.”

  “And ties in with Pandora,” Drake added. “A Pythian jest, no doubt.”

  “I still think there’s more,” Crouch mused.

  “I have clearance,” Argento’s Italian tones broke in. “Just checking the records now.”

  Alicia watched Crouch dip his head and become lost in thought. Caitlyn too, was brainstorming the problem, only she used a keyboard. Put them together and they were the brain of this ancient mystery solving team.

  “In Greece you find the origins of democracy, western philosophy and literature,” he said, emphasizing the importance of the latter. “Political science and western drama. Alexander the Great conveyed many features of its civilization through his movements to the east as did the Roman Empire to the west. It also gave us the Olympic Games.”

  “So it’s the center of the universe,” Alicia said with a little sass. “Or was.”

  “All roads lead from Greece,” Russo intoned unnecessarily and with a dark look on his face. Alicia couldn’t help but laugh, only casting the shadow even further.

  “You know you could debate this all day,” Argento cut in again. “And some do. Scholars. Academics. I used to have a history professor who could talk your ear off for hours. Literally chew it to the bone. But no, no, I digress. Luckily, our mercenaries can be tracked. These days, most agencies install a logger in their fleet of vehicles because it’s much cheaper than GPS. This means they aren’t manning a real-time view of the car but are logging its movements via an onboard computer that can be accessed at any future time. The car is currently stationary within the Mount Olympus National Park, and has been ever since its initial journey.”

  “Inside the park?” Karin wondered. “Why?”

  “It’s a huge place,” Crouch said. “Impossible to keep track of them out there. Ten thousand acres and that’s just the core. And, of course as we know despite a rangers’ best efforts, national parks aren’t the best policed areas in the world. And that’s down to funding, not the rangers.”

  “So Dudley and pals wandered into the mountains,” Drake said. “With the samples. They have to be meeting someone, right? Can you track Le Brun and Bell that far?”

  “No,” Argento said. “The traffic systems outside the cities are not so sophisticated. Yet.”

  “What about dwellings, as ridiculous as that sounds?” Dahl spoke up. “Maybe they hiked through the park to some private area—”

  “Dwellings?” Drake laughed. “You mean like a tree house?”

  “You know what I mean. Don’t be a knob.”

  Alicia found a wide grin stretching across her face as the camaraderie the two men shared lifted the tensio
n in the room. Dahl, of course, pretended nothing had happened and rushed on.

  “Houses. Estates. Everything from mansions to caves.”

  Caitlyn clicked around the Internet. “Officially no mention of large caves has ever been made, which does not rule them out,” she said. “And sounds somewhat suspicious.”

  “The twelve Greek gods lived in the ‘folds of Olympus’,” Crouch said. “Its many fog-shrouded ravines. According to Homer they have their places there and prehistoric man chose to build dwellings at the foot of this wondrous peak. Pantheon, which today is called Mytikas, was their meeting place.” He stopped, thinking. “But surely not . . .”

  “While I can see Dudley and his friends making it up there,” Drake said. “I can hardly see Miranda Le Brun and half a dozen mad scientists completing the journey.”

  “Still,” Crouch said, “Olympus itself is the ‘meeting place’. Even in 1941 the Greek resistance found a hiding place there whilst battling the Germans.”

  “Trouble is,” Caitlyn said, “the whole of Olympus has been made an archaeological and historical place to preserve its general topography.”

  “Still, towns surround it. Litochoro. Katerini. Dion. My hope is that these towns are more communities. Outsiders would be noticed immediately. That sends me back to the idea of a covert place where this factory could have been outfitted. Let’s face it, a factory like that, once you know the components you need, can be retrofitted in one trip. Scientists can be installed quickly too. Once invested, they would stay until the job was done . . .” he tailed off.

  Alicia stared at him. If it ever could be said a light bulb suddenly lit up someone’s eyes this was that moment.

  Crouch spun around, excitement surrounding him. “We have to go to Greece,” he said. “All of us. My God, of course, Mount Olympus is Pandora’s birthplace! It’s a given that they would base the factory there!”

  Silence followed in which everyone digested his deductions. Karin was the first to speak up. “But that doesn’t work inside a national park. I highly doubt you could supply even a small factory without somebody noticing. At the very least, the risk of being spotted would prevent you trying in the first place.”

  “Corruption,” the more experienced Crouch said with a bitter expression. “It’s hard to think of a worse sin that flew out of Pandora’s Box. I think we’re looking for an underground cave somewhere in the vicinity of Mount Olympus. Maybe just outside the national park,” he added as a consent to Karin.

  “And how would we find such a thing?” Healey asked.

  “Oh, I can think of several ways,” Dahl said. “It used to be one of my specialties.”

  Argento cleared his throat. “And I also have ideas. Let me implement those whilst you all get on your flights. Let me handle this. Time is the factor, my friends. Time. Get going. Now.”

  Alicia rose quickly, spurred on by the prospect of meeting up with the old team as much as finding the secret factory. “Move it, Russo. Healey.”

  The rugged man heaved his bulk upright. “Ain’t you gonna miss the Frenchy?” His eyes narrowed knowingly.

  “Beauregard? Ah, don’t worry that rock you call a head. I can always . . . grab him later.”

  Russo groaned as Alicia let out a bawdy laugh.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  By the time Drake and the team boarded a fast jet, Armand Argento was almost ready to offer a theory. Karin took her time ensuring the communications were sound and secure, but before the jet hit thirty thousand feet they were ready. Alicia’s crew were waiting for a “very important person” to whisk them from Paris to Greece, but wouldn’t elaborate beyond that.

  Drake completed a weapons’ check with Dahl. This was the first mission he could remember where the majority of the world’s governments were behind them, supporting them, and their cooperation made a huge difference. The jet was already skimming across the airways, a priority status; Hayden kept the many interested parties apprised whilst Argento mapped out his plan.

  “If we imagine this cave as a subterranean bunker, which is essentially what it is, contained, self-sufficient, then it will have no open or easily accessible doors. No windows. But it must have air vents, do you see? Exhaust vents. More—it must have power cables and even more topside connections. Otherwise the mad scientists—they would die.”

  Dahl smiled and caught Drake’s eye. Kinimaka grinned at them. “This guy’s a real riot, eh?”

  Drake ignored them, watching Mai. Seated beside Yorgi for the trip and behind Smyth and Lauren, the Japanese woman was barely in the game, no doubt ruminating on her situation and the welfare of Grace, whom they had left behind in London. The gulf between them had only widened since the Pythians upped the stakes, and now he could see no easy way across until Mai faced and destroyed her newly risen demons. The rest of the team was buoyant, reinvigorated by the emergence of the fresh lead, but anxious as ever that it may have come too late.

  Argento went on, “So we have all these telltale indicators, yes? Through satellite navigation we can scan the detail of the area and find them. We are using the satellites as we speak. As you say, Olympus is a large area and we’re having to double up because of the surrounding sites, but we will have success. I’m sure of it.”

  Dahl leaned over to Drake. “Satellites,” he said. “We have them now.”

  “How far out from Greece are we?”

  “From landing? Two hours. Alicia’s team should get there about the same time if their mystery guest ever turns up. Karin is trying to find a nearby landing strip.” He gestured at the blond girl working away on a laptop. “Or at least a long patch of flat ground we can land on.” The Swede chortled.

  Argento came back on line. “We’re searching for suspicious shadows, mesh, imaginary borders. Camouflage netting. Pipes. Trails. Even brief heat signatures if we’re lucky, as from a man slipping out for a cigarette. They cannot escape us.”

  Drake’s face turned grim. He was more than ready to bring war to the place where these bastards lived.

  *

  Alicia experienced her second utterly surreal moment in as many weeks at the sight of the famous movie star, Reece Carrera, standing at the top of the steps that led to his private plane. The man’s smile shone like a stadium floodlight and his warm, welcoming voice melted away all her concerns. This really was the best way to travel.

  “Unfortunately,” Crouch commented as they mounted the steps. “We now owe Mr. Carrera, as his last favor was the only one he owed. Still, I can think of no faster or more clandestine way to travel at short notice.”

  “Lucky he was in the area,” Healey said, cinching his jacket tighter.

  “Yeah, he has homes in Paris, London, Vegas and LA,” Crouch said. “All the trouble hotspots. When I first learned of the targeted cities I put him on standby.”

  Alicia shook her head at their boss. “Man, you’re fuckin’ awesome. I’d love to be able to put a movie star on standby.”

  As they reached the top of the stairs Carrera backed away and allowed them access to the luxurious cabin. The first time she had met this man even Alicia experienced a passable sense of awe. This second time however, she was past all that.

  “So Reecey, we got about two hours to Greece. What you wanna do? You ever done it with a soldier girl before?”

  Carrera backed away to give her plenty of room. “Ah, I do have a girlfriend, Miss Myles. Otherwise . . .”

  Alicia slapped him playfully on the bicep. It was like hitting a punch bag filled with lead. “Ach, naughty. I meant what we gonna cook together? You do like cooking, right? That’s pretty much all you ever talk about.”

  She flounced past, heading to the onboard kitchen as if she owned the place.

  Russo came next. “You’ll get used to her, Mr. Carrera. Some say she’s a bitch. Me? I’m undecided.”

  Alicia heard Crouch muttering some apology, but once Caitlyn was inside and the door was shut Carrera headed straight to the kitchen.

  As she’d expe
cted.

  “So, you like cooking?” Carrera grinned.

  “I like lots of things, Reecey. Some involve knives, others forks and spoons. I’m a forward thinking kinda girl. Always ready for the next adventure.”

  Carrera nodded as he washed his hands. Alicia couldn’t help but notice their size. The man could do great damage with those things, especially since he worked out at a gym five times a week. Strong hands, capable hands, she thought. Makes a girl feel all secure. Only one man in her life had accomplished that before, and only for a short time.

  “You like linguini?” Carrera asked. “I make a spice medley all of my own. Makes it taste—” he kissed his fingers. “Fantastico!”

  “Ya got corned beef hash?”

  At that moment the pilot’s voice came over the intercom, asking for seats to be taken prior to take-off. Carrera’s odd look transformed immediately into another smile and he turned away. Alicia followed him, allowing her eyes to travel downward as he walked.

  Russo watched her from the nearest window seat. “Having fun?”

  Alicia plonked herself down beside him. “Got any ice cubes? I need to cool down.”

  “You’ll have your hands full soon enough,” Russo said with a touch of irony. “Soon as we land we’re at war.”

  “Have they found something?”

  Russo nodded at Caitlyn. “She’s still tuned into the feed between Argento and SPEAR. All that bollocks about steam vents and electrical cables appears to have paid off. There’s a hidden underground bunker or cave just on the fringes of the national park.”

  “Defended?”

  “Well, not obviously but I’d say yeah. It’s close to the only main road in the region. They might also have camouflaged choppers that we can’t see and God knows what else. But we have the two best teams in the world, right?”

  Alicia shrugged. “Maybe. If we swop you for that Agent Collins in LA, I’d feel better.”

  “Piss off. Damn, you’re a confusing one. You run from one team to the next. Even a biker group. One boss to the next. And there’s always a . . . um, romantic angle. Somebody to be with. Then there’s the question of girls or boys—which is it that you like?”